kino no owari
by CaideSin
Summary: Do I see a vacuum there, or am I going blind? [kino's journey  kingdom hearts]


**The Land of Empty Spaces **

**I am not here where I am **

Kino has been to empty places before.

Beneath Kino, Hermes's weak hummingbird wings beat.

Kino has seen empty places. Kino has seen streets swept clean by slavish robots. Kino has visited empty towns. Kino has driven through streets dripping with the corpses of many. Kino knows what empty is, has seen turrets peaking from beneath long cooled pools of lava. Kino has seen seaweed-clogged streets, long obscured by thundering water currents and drowning and death.

**Shadows. Empty. **

**Kino. **

**Empty. **

**Nobody. Shadows. **

**Kino. **

Kino is no stranger to death. But this… this Kino finds strange. Kino has been to many empty places. The cities with no People. But never to a city with nobody.

Nobody, but the writhe of silvermoonlight shapes, barely distinguishable from the mortar. Nobody, but indistinct lines of neon lights, strobing with indecision.

Entry had been so simple; the doors had just… opened, with no one to guard the towering gates. Nobody standing guard.

"Kino?" Hermes asks hesitantly. "Are you sure we should be here?"

The sky is broken—mammoth white towers splitting the ozone wide open—exposing the perfect true-blue sky, which is perfectly besmirched by clouds and an amazingly warm rain. And an amazingly harsh wind.

"Yes." Kino says.

Where Kino is, is where Kino should be.

Shadows, Kino's eyes trace their dance.

The one crawling up Kino's boot is… it falls back in a splatter, its blue-black blood mixing with warm-wet rain, seeping towards the gaping maw of the sewer grates.

Red light falls to stone-cold earth from the muzzle of the Persuader.

"Don't."

The voice is a hissing whisper of strength, the wind pitches and the smell, the rotting smell, mires deep in Kino's lungs.

Leaves, rotting leaves, slithering towards Kino, towards Hermes.

"Who's there?" Kino says, in that voice Teacher had worked so hard to teach.

It is the voice that belongs with The Cannon, Teacher had said. It is cold, glinting, commanding, Persuading.

"Don't!"

Vines: long, thorned, abominations to the gentle earth. The vines come creeping, the souring smell of dying roses lingering somewhere on the wet air and on the hideously brutal wind.

Kino has seen many things.

"Don't hurt the children," this manwoman nothing elderychild cries. Its voice rends, its daffodil eyes quiver.

Another shadow slides along Hermes's chrome. Kino sights. Kino shoots.

The child falls, the shadows child, the nothing. The nobody. The seepage of the rot intensifies as the rain explodes again from the shattered sky.

"Kino?" Hermes's engine dulls to a whisper, rain steaming off the tank.

"There is something wrong."

And the heap of compost weeps. Heavy poison tears of sap leaking from ravaged holes in the bark of the no-thing's face.

The silver bodies rise up from the shadows, unzipping their costumed flesh, exposing nothing beneath and disappearing into their element again. The city's sick, demented imitation of the masquerades of the Carnivàle.

Hermes is frightened between Kino's thighs. Kino turns the right hand and leans forward.

They run, fleeing down the empty streets in the city of nobody.

**The Land of Lost Children **

**—part a— **

**the holy mother named me… **

The inn costs nothing and is run by no one, but Hermes fits through the doors and there is a shower. There is shelter from the rain and there are locks—working locks—on the doors.

"This place is scary, Kino," Hermes says.

Kino nods absentmindedly, running soggy fingers over The Woodman's soggy trigger.

The smell of rot.

Kino's eyes move, never for one moment depending on the locks. Teacher had once taught that lesson, Teacher had once taught that lesson well.

The empty bodies slide lithely beneath the door.

The silver neon bodies, light and airy, only visible as streaks and lines of indefinable color, dancing along reality on tightrope spidersilk.

The child who follows is unexpected. The no-thing child with silver eyes like a glittering lake and jagged dandelion fluff on his head.

Kino smiles for reasons Hermes does not understand.

"You're a Traveler," the child breathes, his cheeks pale and dead. Kino cannot believe such a corpse can still breath and Kino is not trusting of something so very wrong. Kino does not attempt to apologize for the discourtesy of The Cannon's sights settling carefully upon the boy's delicate brow.

"Yes, I am a Traveler. My name is Kino."

**my name… **

**someone once told me… **

**who said… **

**that watching the birds made them… **

**i don't remember… **

**want to go on a journey…**

"We never get Travelers here, so close to the End of the World… Eaten," the blond concedes, "they're always eaten."

Hermes's gears click uncomfortably. "That shadow thing was trying to eat me?" The silent sound of nervous wings fluttering fills the room.

The boy steps forward fearfully, his eyes empty and his soul anted weightlessly upon the table.

"Ki-no," he tastes the name. "Kino, my name was Sora a long time ago. I welcome you to our homeland… and hope you will survive your stay."

"Thank you," Kino smiles, that same smile which makes Hermes wonder what Kino is thinking.

"May I ask you a question, Traveler?"

And Kino knows this. Kino knows this dance, knows these questions, and for the first time in all of Kino's life, there is an answer.

"Sure, feel free."

"Where are you headed?"

Kino _smiles _. "To the End of the World."

"When will you leave?"

The answer is easier than it used to be. "The day after tomorrow."

The boy, who says he was once Sora long ago, does not smile at Kino. He turns away, his pallid eyes empty. Then he is gone, taking his dancing samurai shapes away with him in a clang of warm-blue steel.

**If you are staying three days… **

**your stay will coincide with the end of the world. **

**Will that be all right with you? **

**The Land of Lost Children **

**—part b— **

**Kino. **

**Where are you headed? Kino. **

**to the end of the world. **

**SO_roxas_RA **

The rain does not stop during the night.

While cleaning the guns, Kino watches as each tiny bit of liquid shrapnel batters itself to alls-fate upon the windowpane.

"What do you think it's like being a raindrop, Kino?" Hermes wonders.

Kino laughs and continues to rebuild The Flute with intense concentration. "Very exciting, I'd imagine."

**The Land of Gambled Souls **

**—snakeyes— **

The streets are empty again the next day and the corpulent moon still hangs in the speared sky. The clouds and the rain have finally rolled away, but it is still so dark, so endlessly night that Kino only knows the time due to a nigh unbreakable internal clock.

"Kino! Look, Kino! It looks like a Heart!" Hermes notices with enthusiasm. The repulsive decaying glow surrounding the moon over this city of nobody makes Kino grimace.

"Yes, Hermes, it does," Kino agrees hideously.

The air shifts and Kino whirls with a half-banished snarl to face a sudden presence from behind. No one has snuck up on Kino that way since they departed from the dog and the prince… and that was many turns of the road ago.

"Roxas wasn't kidding," the man-creature murmurs thoughtfully, stroking a square, bearded chin that leads to pronounced cheeks and the silver-laced eyes of the no-things. "There really is a Traveler."

"Does he joke about that often?" Kino asks, slowly urging the Persuader back into its holster, fingers subtly rubbing a knife while on their path.

"Can never tell with him. I think he's gone out of his mind over the years."

The blade smells faintly of cumin and electricity when Kino brandishes it.

The no-thing raises one cultured eyebrow, and then laughs. "Yes, you're right, Traveler, we are _all _quite mad here."

Kino nods assent. "This city feels like it has been empty a very long time."

"And it will always be. Though, someday, the last of the worlds will die. Xemnas tells us that will be the day of the nineteenth cold moon."

It is Kino's turn to laugh again. "And what happens when your green plate is shattered? Will the blue lamplight dance again?" Citing prophesy off the tip of a wicked and whimsical tongue.

"No." Kino does not know the man's name is Luxord. "No, the sky will break open completely, and that heart will bleed. We will drink of its blood. And then everyone will leave this place, and there will finally be nothing here."

"There is nothing here I _now _."

Luxord motions to himself. "I am here. You met dear little Roxas and that pile of breathing mulch, Marluxia, last night. You saw the silver shadows and the glowing eyes of the hungry and of the heartless. If we are not what we are because we do not exist, then what are we?"

Kino looks skyward and caresses the long line of Hermes's metallic flank. Kino thinks about where names come from.

"That is for you to decide."

"Not fate? Not prophesy?" Luxord insists in his warm, playful voice.

"You don't really believe in fate?" Kino challenges softly.

The dice roll from his hand like dragonflies, clattering to a halt against Kino's boots.

The bone-white faces are blank.

"No. I don't." Then the man who Kino does not know is named Luxord is gone.

He leaves behind juggling silver-white creatures that quickly lose all of their remaining selves to the Game.

**The Land of Bare Hands **

**—life's work— **

"There's nothing here, Kino," Hermes complains. "What are we supposed to do for the next two days?"

Kino breathes in the wet air. "We'll find out, won't we?"

This city has no history to study, but that does not stop Kino from _wondering_. Kino wonders how this place was really made, and even goes so far as to ask one of the more humanoid of the slippery-sliding no-things which dance along the cracks in the sidewalks.

Kino is surprised when one of the creatures skates in closer to listen to the request. Its expressionless face melts sideways and then its entire body disappears.

"Well, that was rude." Hermes notes and Kino climbs back onto the leather seat, taking the tank comfortingly between two thighs.

"I… guess, even if there's nothing here… this place still has its customs," Kino tells the handlebars, turning the throttle and pushing the motorrad into motion.

The speedometer flickers incredulously as they move through the streets, and then droops suddenly to zero. There is a stoplight.

It isn't often that Kino and Hermes encounter a stoplight in their travels. The less urbanized countries have not developed them and the highest of the advanced have no need. But, both motorrad and rider recognize what the red symbol means. Stop, stop dead.

Another nothing child waits for them at the corner. He looks up as they approach and gestures to the structure of the light. It all disappears, the electrical wires and even the poles from which the light had been strung. He approaches with silent steps and offers Kino a leather-bound book.

"They said you were looking for this," his face is young and empty, but his voice sounds older and emotionless.

Kino blinks, hand leaving Hermes's warm throttle to accept the gift.

"Thank you. Really." Kino says with a sweet sincerity Teacher had said was better not to show. Sometimes, Kino did not always learn the lesson. "Is there somewhere I could have dinner and read this?"

The boy has those nothing eyes, polluted by silver and vacant. He inhales, deeply.

"Not in the city. Travelers are too rare. However, _we _would be amused if you would come up to the castle." He motions to one of the tallest of the towers. Even the staircase leading to its imposing front gates stretches many miles above the rooftops of the lower city.

The hotel Kino had stayed in the night before is the only building to rival the castle's height. The skyscraper reaches a few scant inches more because of a useless weathervane stretching competitively from its crown.

"We would be honored," Kino replies, urging the book under the green jacket for safe keeping.

Shadows. And the smell of rot.

Kino stiffens, reaching out through feel and flesh for the awkward sensation.

The boy grimaces. "Marluxia," he growls with disdain. He motions with a hand and the Shadow scent leaps infinitely closer. It bubbles up like tar from the streets and then expands into an arching portal.

"After you," he whispers, "Kino."

**The Land of White Walls **

**colorless impressions **

The skyscraping hotel Kino had stayed in the night before is outfitted to serve the humans who never come. The castle, where it seems the last few shredded semblances of the population live, is not.

It is cold and inhospitable and unbelievably, optically white. The sounds of Hermes's motor ring out and echo for miles, as if in an amphitheater.

"What is your motorrad's name?" the boy wonders. He pauses for a second and then glances back at them dully. "My name is Zexion, should you care to call me by it."

"Hermes. 'ermes. The H is silent," the mechanical voice chirrups. "Nice to meet you, Zexion."

"Yes," Kino adds quietly. "Very nice."

Kino's eyes stick to the hallway's arches like glue, tracing their strong lines, which support the long empty walls… which support nothing of their own. The city is a sprawl of dark silver-white shapes out the window; neon lights flicker with no one really there to see.

"Nice view you guys got up here," Hermes is chattering. "We were down in the city all day and, pretty as it is, there's nothing to do. What is it you guys do for fun around here?"

A reluctant giggle is ripped from the no-thing boy. "Fun… we can't really have fun. We just do anything that will keep us occupied."

They continue down the long hall, nearing a huge ivory door with each step, Kino pushing Hermes along as the motorrad continues to talk to their host.

"Not have fun? How can someone not have fun? Everybody has fun. Even I like oil changes and nicely paved roads."

Zexion's mouth is an enigmatic curl. "Everybody has fun, but what about a nobody?"

Kino strokes Hermes indulgently and intercedes, "How many people will be joining us for dinner?"

"Most of the other eleven," the boy replies dispassionately, motioning open the door to reveal a formal dining area carved entirely from alabaster. The stone is soft and holy beneath Kino's wondering caress. "We'll be ready in a quarter of an hour. For the time being, I assumed you'd want to read?"

"Thank you, you're very kind."

Zexion exits without another word and leaves nothing behind in his wake.

Kino takes the book from out of the olive green jacket and perches delicately in one of the alabaster chairs.

**but what about… **

**about… **

**nobody? **

**The Land of Ineffable Lies**

**—hiSTORY— **

A long time ago, Darkness created Light by enslaving Himself to Her and She created the Universe from His seed.

Their children grew strong and lush and from their fertile soils, Light gave birth to the living.

Her jealous Husband did not approve of Her infidelity and threatened Her with exile for Her betrayal.

Insulted by His words, arrogant Light gave Man to the Worlds and gave the Sun to Man.

Petty Light left Darkness chained to the Sun and went to walk the expanses of the Existence.

Darkness cursed Her from His prison, cursed Her never to give birth again and She did not.

But, as the millennia began to span, Her heart began to ache for Him across the distances.

The pain grew so strong that She ripped out Her willful heart and sent it wandering to the Darkness She had betrayed, abandoned, and jailed.

He was disgusted by Her paltry gift.

He threw it to Man, like a Master indulging a Pet, and Man ate of His scraps greedily.

And by devouring Light's heart, Man grew his emotions.

Strange, new, emotions beyond Hunger and beyond Survival.

With these new feelings, Man began to Plan and Man began to Dream and to Prophesize and to Worship.

Man Worshipped the Sun where Darkness lay bound, mistaking its warmth for their Mother.

Only after thousands upon thousands of years, did their true Mother returned to them from Her wandering.

She returned from the cold empty blackness of the Cosmos, driven mad by it.

She unleashed Darkness then, negligently leaving the ball and chain of the empty Moon behind.

She begged His forgiveness, but He would not give it and Their marriage, which had created the Worlds, was at last dissolved.

They watched over Their children then, but warred with one another constantly.

Light was desperate to use Man to eradicate Darkness and Darkness, who held no love for Light's most favored creation, was bent on the destruction of Man.

Together, They created the last of Their entities.

From the thick miasma of Light's insanity, the shadows of Darkness's hatred crawled forth on oily limbs.

This hate attached itself to Man and began spreading like a Plague, devouring Man's heart and the inner Light.

This famine made the Worlds fragile, rotting them to their core.

And so, they broke apart, shattering everything.

It was then that the End of the World was born and with the suffering of the Worlds, the Terminus and the endless breeds of broken Demons soon followed, pouring forth in the End's wake.

"The rest of the pages…" Kino murmurs, bemused. "They're smeared, I can't read them."

And it is true, except for a small strip of a passage, which was ripped from the top of the following page.

"What does it say, Kino?" Hermes asks, impatiently.

Kino only smiles.

**In the coming War… **

**…the breed called Nobody… **

**They-they-they guard the gates to Worlds' End… **

**…and the City was born of their Need. **

**There is nothing more to history.**

**The Land of China Vases **

**grow from my delicacy**

The first of the no-things to enter the dining room is a doll-faced womanchild. Her imperious Prussian eyes flash silver as she glares at Kino. Hermes's engine backfires protectively and the woman takes a seat, her mouth pulled into a faint memory of contempt.

"I heard there was a Traveler," she notes, her voice temptingly feminine. "I wasn't expecting to see you here, though."

Kino does not give in. "I was invited by Zexion."

"Were you?" the girlman says, voice lilting and shifting into hard-edged masculinity. "Well, Kino, you're in for a treat."

Zexion and the man Kino does not know is named Luxord had both known Kino's name. This woman does as well and Kino thinks—the one who used to be Sora and must now be—Roxas is the one who told them.

"Might I ask your name?" Kino ventures politely, setting the leather-bound book of smeared history upon the alabaster table.

The smell of rot edges in through toxic silver-blue eyes. Kino does not startle.

"Larxene," the womanboy snarls, toying with lightning-shock hair.

"Is there a reason your names all have —" Hermes begins to wonder, Larxene cuts in swiftly, "Yes."

Whether she'll tell them this reason or not, the answer is No.

The next to step up to the dining altar is a corpse, which has badly decayed. He looks at Kino, his eye glinting a silvered whitegold.

Kino is horrified and he smiles at the expression in Kino's dark eyes.

"Larxene, I haven't seen you at dinner for a while now, sweetheart," he murmurs congenially. Larxene's face is a livid pale and her silver eyes unhinge. She purses her lips and does not say another word to the dead man.

"Dinner will be ready in about ten more minutes, Kino. Zexion wanted me to tell you," he says as he drops into a chair.

The man wavers a hand over an empty spot of the table and plates lift through the stone, settling themselves with the delicate chink of harassed wind chimes. Silverware follows, their landing is softer and sharper at once and Kino blinks dully at his demonstration. He returns Kino's gaze.

"Where are you from?" He asks the question all citizens of a somewhere feel they must ask. He sets his elbows on the table to lean in closer to Kino. His one hawk-like eye trained enviously on each of Kino's breaths.

"Nowhere, for as long as I travel." Kino has long since forgotten the name of Home.

"And where are you headed?"

"Where all things go, I suppose," Kino muses and Hermes is stunned by Kino's voice, reminiscent and as timeless as a childhood. "Though, I wonder what it is I will do after I see the end. That should be it… shouldn't it."

"You aren't afraid?" the no-thing wonders.

Kino smiles in the only appropriate way, soft eyelashes dipping in embarrassment, "No."

**The Land of Alabaster Chairs **

**chains of propriety**

The rest of the no-things trickle in, the last taking his place just as the food begins appearing upon the table.

Little Roxas sits beside Kino, looking up with gleaming oceanic-silver eyes.

He whispers names for each of the others.

The first is Vexen, he enters and places a small set of pills before each plate, even Kino's. Roxas greets him as Doctor and is ignored. Kino notices the pills are the same vitamins kept in the rations pack and takes them without a word.

The second is Saïx, he uncovers the blinds, exposing the cratered heart hanging low in the sky. Roxas greets him by rank and is ignored.

The third is Demyx, he greets Roxas with an endearment and then sits down one seat away. Roxas meets him by name and then looks up sharply to regard the fourth man, Xemnas.

Xemnas takes his seat at the head of the table and is addressed by all as Superior. Kino is far more observant of him than anyone else.

The next two are Xaldin and Lexaeus, they glare at Roxas when he makes to welcome them.

Axel is the last, appearing just as Zexion sits and the serving begins.

Axel says hello to Roxas with a smile and takes the chair beside him.

**The Land Before Midnight **

**listen to my voice**

The food is delicious and Kino tells Zexion as much. Zexion shrugs half-heartedly and continues to eat.

There is not much conversation at the table.

Demyx talks quietly with Hermes, which Kino is pleased to note Hermes is enjoying, and Roxas whispers something to Axel.

"I believed you from the start, Rox," he answers, making a sound like a laugh and then looking straight at Kino.

"…tomorrow," Kino hears Hermes say. "Kino has a rule about only staying three days."

And Axel licks his thin quirking lips, "So, Kino, you wanna spend your last night here with me in my bed?" Hermes makes a sharp clicking noise that doesn't warn the crimson haired no-thing off. Axel looks at Kino, his hunger tainted by silver poisoning.

"Why would I do that?" Kino wonders, unsurprised to notice none of the others are paying attention to their conversation.

"Because I can't tell if you're a boy or a girl, but I know you're beautiful and with only that motorrad for company…"

Roxas looks up at the redhead, smiling lazily, "He's lying."

"Axel, you're a pig," Larxene snarls over the table suddenly.

Axel turns towards her coolly and replies, "Hello, Larxene. I didn't see you there. How's the baby? Given it new soil yet? Has it gotten its first blossom?"

Larxene's face contorts and she gets up from the table, storming away.

Kino's eyes follow her. "I would have had to decline anyway, I'm sorry, Axel," Kino answers, at last.

"Don't wanna get tied down anywhere?" Axel winks at Kino widely.

"No," Kino answers, the tear-like inflections perfuming each word. Teacher had warned against this sound. "I've never been with anyone."

"Why not?" Roxas questions, his gaze drifting towards the ceiling absentmindedly. No one has touched him either.

"The man I loved died when I was twelve," the dark eyed Traveler replies.

It isn't the truth, but it isn't a lie either, so it's close enough to gospel for Kino.

**The Land of Little Truths**

**what i believe**

Roxas offers to take Kino and Hermes back to the hotel by portal, Axel offers Kino his bed again, and Xemnas offers Kino a room elsewhere in the castle.

Kino declines them all, but tells Roxas that Hermes can carry two passengers, if he wants a ride.

The boy does, his face lighting in excitement. It's a kind of heady thrill he doesn't quite know what to do with.

Axel walks them down to the curb and ruffles Roxas's blond hair as the boychild scrambles up onto Hermes leather seat. Roxas's silver-blue eyes are very pretty in the neon, Kino notices with a kind of affection.

"Have fun, Rox."

Roxas's face dims a little. "I know what you mean." Axel nods approval and then pats Hermes's rear tire-guard like he's sending a horse out to win the West.

Kino takes the long way back to the skyscraper, just listening to Roxas's excited breathing before calling back to him, "If this isn't fun, then what does it feel like?"

The wet air is fragrant with ozone and the clouds are returning, as is the biting wind. This city, Kino thinks, must suffer from perpetual storms. The neon and the lightning must have become fast friends by now.

"Like… like movement," the no-thing replies. "So very much movement."

His voice is a trail of ghosts in upon the wind.

"What has happened to you that you can't feel emotions?" Kino asks.

Roxas is quiet for a long time before he stands up, using Kino's shoulders for support. Hermes balks a protest, but Kino adjusts the balance and Roxas points off to the horizon, opposite from the bloated moon.

"We don't really exist, Kino. We're dying abstractions of Man, left here to await an End."

Kino pulls in before the hotel and dismounts, Roxas follows, jumping down to the street without so much as a thud from his black-soled boots upon the black-tarred street.

Kino invites him in, and he accepts. The tea Kino prepares for him is a souvenir from somewhere far away. It is the color of gold and smells of red flowers.

"Tell me about the places you've seen, Kino," Roxas asks, his voice sounds eager, but Kino realizes the no-thing can only play at that game. It is an insanity that keeps him sane. It must be terrible, Kino thinks, to have a mind and no emotions to comfort it.

Kino takes out the guns for cleaning while talking; Roxas caresses The Cannon for a moment and then Kino begins. While dismantling The Flute, Kino tells tales about pain, The Woodsman accompanies an account of the end, and The Cannon comes last with Kino's anecdotes for life. Roxas listens attentively, but his mouth seems sad when all the stories are over.

"I'll remember this for a long time, Kino. Until the end, or until I'm Sora again."

Kino can make a real smile fit, and does so for Roxas to see.

"That's the most flattering thing I could ever ask of you, Roxas." The boy looks confused, Kino continues reassuringly. "You've been a good friend."

"Be safe on your journey," Roxas says, opening a shadow tunnel, glancing back with an empty reluctance.

"Don't worry about me," Kino replies.

Roxas nods and then is gone.

**The Land of Evermore **

**shouldn't that be… **

Kino leaves in the afternoon, after spending the day driving through the empty white city. The far borders are as unguarded as the entrance. The silver-lined creatures and the starving shadows cringe back from the gates, but Kino is gone and does not see their reaction.

The road to the End of the World is made of red clay and a beautiful kind of purple flower blooms along the overgrown roadside. Kino wonders if Roxas would know what they are called.

Kino travels for two days and two nights before the cliffs come into sight. The emptiness is heralded by the smell of winter and the smell of the ocean. Endless and barren and lifeless and _cold_.

The waves of eternity sparkle like moonlight and the hearts of the worlds sink slowly beneath the waters. A wavering perfect light shines on the horizon, throwing the same silvery light that had come from deep within the no-things' eyes. The shadows cast by such light are dark, deep in the center and fading to the staining heliotrope that has touched the seas of time.

Kino recognizes a few worlds amongst the fallen. Kino sees many more which have not yet been visited and now never will be.

**That should be… **

**It… **

**the end… **

**…shouldn't it? **

Kino is glad to have seen them.

"Kino." Hermes's motor purrs. "Kino, what now? Will we go back to Teacher's home?"

"No, Hermes," Kino says. "We must keep visiting many beautiful worlds, that way we will always remember why this sight is so precious."

Hermes is quiet for a little while. "Will we ever go back?"

"One can never go back, Hermes. But nothing is forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten. _People_ are never forgotten."

"You liked those creepy nobodies, didn't you?" Hermes laughs as Kino sets up the bike stand.

"They were… good people, once."

"How could you tell?"

"Because they were all so injured by their emptiness."

Hermes shuts off the motor and Kino falls onto the sparse crackling grass of the cliffs.

A hideously glacial wind blows up from the Ends.

"When should we leave, Kino?"

"In the morning, Hermes. We'll leave in the morning."

**"Where are you from?" **

**"Nowhere." **

**"Where are you headed?" **

**"The same place as everything else." **

**"Aren't you frightened?" **

**"No."**

* * *

**Standard Disclaimers. **

**I think this story fits more appropriately into the 'Kino's Journey' category. Admittedly, it crosses over with Kingdom Hearts, but that seemed strangely fitting to her travels. Pardon the phangirlese title, I couldn't really help myself. **


End file.
